ABSTRACT
The Land of Cokayne is a forerunner of the Anglo-Irish literature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The poem survives in a unique manuscript, which contains a variety of works in English, French, and Latin, some of which may have been composed by English-speaking settlers in Ireland. Since the manuscript is associated with the Franciscan abbey in Kildare, it has been argued that the poem is a satire aimed by a Franciscan friar specifically against the Cistercian monks in Kildare. More generally, perhaps, the poem is a universal parody of a monk’s notion of the “earthly paradise” where he would be relieved of vigils, fasts, and celibacy. Despite this ambiguity of intention and the frivolity of its tone, the stern voice of the preacher is unmistakable.
